If Only
by aRegularJo
Summary: One bullet, two possible outcomes. Would anything really be different if Castle was the one who got shot? Two stories in one; "If" follows a what-if Castle was the one shot; "Only" deals with the aftermath of Beckett's shooting.
1. If, Chapter 1

Hello! New to the Castle world; have been writing Bones, Chuck, and House for a while (by the way, for those who got alerts: There actually will be an update to "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" at some point. I love it too much not to.) and am happy to be playing in this sandbox!

This is born out of the fact that I really, really thought that Castle was going to get the bullet in the season finale, and the parallels of the what-if-ness intrigue me. So this story will be essentially two stories in one, alternating chapters: In the odd-numbered chapters, "If," it's the what-if world: What would happen if Castle was the one who got shot? How would people think/feel/react, and how would the relationship dramz get resolved? In the even-numbered chapters, "Only" (geddit?), it's the "reality": Kate's gotten shot, it's the only real world. How much is truly different, how much is actually the same? Blah blah existentionalism cakes.I decided to post them all in one document to highlight the dualism and parallels and any other deep literary currents that pop up :)

It'll all unfold in a pretty easy-to-grasp fashion, but here are the bullets (pun intended): Everything in "Only" is the same as aired; in "If" Castle jumped in time, took the bullet, and still said "I love you" before the lights dimmed. We're taking off from there.

PS — I'm sorry for starting the story with the uncompelling dead fish of Josh. It was the best natural starting point, but damn is it hard to write a never-seen, never-explored plot device. I apologize if he seems out of character. /sarcasm

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><p><em><strong>If<strong>_

_**Chapter One **_

When it came right down to it, Josh knew that there was nothing inherently dramatic about cardiac surgery. When it came down to it, it was procedure. Routine. Something he did frequently, with some variance, but inherently the same. Just like coffee. Breathing. Sleep. Running. Sex. Surgery. All the same.

There was nothing, though, routine about _this_ surgery, where he was cutting, suturing, and clamping to save the larger-than-life life of one Richard Castle, his girlfriend's partner, shot at a funeral, of all places. He gritted his teeth. Partner. He'd never quite trusted the term when she used it: First, he wasn't a _cop_, and she was, so he called bullshit on the professional veneer. She rarely used "friend" — and if she did, it was in a tripping, "He's my partner, my friend," way, as if it was some sort of backup justification — but even "best friend since the seventh grade" wouldn't cover the look of terror in her eyes as she had jumped out of that ambulance as it screamed into New York-Pres. _She wouldn't even look that way for Lanie,_ a voice taunted from the back of his head. He wasn't stupid, but he trusted Kate, and he'd asked her, enough times, about Castle, and the answers had been so distant and clueless that he'd taken them.

_"Well, those are Ryan and Esposito and … that guy? That's Castle. He's a writer. He's … It's kind of embarrassing. He follows me around for his books," she'd said the first time he'd asked about the guy in a picture in her apartment._

He follows her around for his books, Josh thought, the voice in his head taunting him even as he asked for suction.

_ "His books?"_

_ "Yeah. You know that Nikki Heat series of detective books. He writes those. He comes along on cases with me and the boys for research."_

_ "Research?" he'd raised his eyebrows. "You're, like, the main character in a book series?" He'd laughed then, because he'd known her for three weeks and she was ballsy and beautiful, and _of course_ she had a book series written about her_.

_"Yeah. It's … weird. I don't like thinking about it, honestly," she giggled, doing that adorable bite-the-lip thing. "It's … It's just weird, you know, since she's not me but she's kind of like me, a little. I just kind of do my thing and let him do his." _

_ He hadn't even heard of the books but he went to the Borders and bought the first book the next day. Needless to say, it had rubbed a little._

_ "So, these Nikki Heat books," he'd said the next day, when they were at a café on the Upper West. _

_ She swallowed a bite of omelet. "Oh, God," she'd said. "You didn't — did you read them?"_

_ "Uh, yeah, I did," he said. "So this Rook guy."_

_ She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that Rook guy."_

_ "He's based on this Castle guy, I'm guessing," he said, waggling his eyebrows a little._

_ She shrugged bashfully. "I guess, I mean, I don't ask him about his job."_

_ "He asks you about yours, though."_

_ "Well, yeah. Because that's part of _his_ job," she'd explained. _

_ "Still," he pressed. "Have you read the books?"_

_ She straightened. "You're asking about the sex scenes, aren't you?"_

_ He hedged. They were dating, not exclusively, and Kate seemed like a pretty private person. But he liked her. "I'm asking if I have something I need to ask about," he finally said._

_ She shrugged, then shook her head. "Castle has a very active imagination, and he knows what he needs to write bestsellers," she'd said. When she saw the hesitation in his eyes, she said, "That's all. I swear. Trust me, he's completely, exclusively, in the friend column. Unlike, say, you," she trailed her foot, sandal slipped off, up his calf, and he grinned. _

For a while he'd been fine with it. After all, he met the guy, and he didn't seem like much — kind of quiet, which wasn't how Kate described him, but he was definitely quiet, and older, and he had a kid and a girlfriend and always seemed kind of out of place, wherever he was (Mostly, "wherever" was the precinct). He seemed pretty decent, nothing too great, honestly. Kate never particularly seemed to talk about him, but was neither defensive nor evasive when discussing him, and seemed a bit wary of delving too deeply. That was Kate, though — she didn't like talking about work. She insisted she liked her job — anyone who was that committed had to, he knew — that she liked the justice it brought victims of truly terrible things. Castle was a part of every story she had from work, though so were Esposito and Ryan and Montgomery, and all their antics seemed to make her laugh equally. She gave Castle credit where it was due but that was it. They both had their own circles at work — god knew he had enough female friends — and it seemed to be both so odd and so innocuous that it rarely came up. Kate was solid; hilarious and dependable and independent enough to deal with his trips and fantastic in bed, and the combination was tantalizing. She didn't like talking about her job much but that was normal. There weren't any warning signs that this guy was anything, really.

In fact, Castle didn't really come up again until one night, after he'd just returned from a trip to the Sudan, that he noticed a sheaf of papers on her dining-room table when they were having a quiet night in. He'd only been back for a few days, and he was pretty damn happy to be back with her. There was something about Kate, this way she could just listen and reflect back and make you calm down and relaxed, and after so long in the Sudan he needed it. He wouldn't have noticed but she _never_ had any clutter. There was some legal paperwork, a few applications, and, briefly, a flash of something that looked like a seating arrangement.

_ "What's this?" he'd asked._

_ "Oh," she'd said, scooping them up to clear the table for dinner. "It's for this scholarship Castle's starting."_

_ "He's starting a scholarship?" he let the 'and wants your input' dangle._

_ "Yeah," she said, folding her arms and rocking on the ball of her feet. "In honor of my mother, at Columbia, so he's asking me for input on the, I don't know, fundraising, and the applicants the school screened. He was over the other night to discuss it."_

_ He was flabbergasted. He knew Kate's mom had been a lawyer; had been murdered a decade ago. It was why she became a cop. He admired that about her; that she could take a personal tragedy and let it drive, but not define, her. She barely talked about it, had only mentioned it around Christmas. _

_ "He's starting a scholarship. For your mother."_

_ "In honor of my mother," she insisted gently. "And, yeah. We had this case, remember, I told you about it. The guy who was the lotto winner, right? And he was trying to figure out what I would do if I won the Lotto, and finally he decided — all by himself, of course, because he's Castle — that I would want to start a scholarship in honor of my mother. So. He did."_

_ "He just up and started a scholarship," Josh repeated._

_ She nodded. "He also bought a helium machine to make his own balloons that week. I think this one's a slightly more worthy cause, but that's just me." _

_ He thought of the Castle that Kate had presented, a lightweight writer distracted by anything shiny, and matched it up against the type of guy who would start a scholarship worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in a platonic friend's name. _

_ "Is it what you would have bought?" he asked, suddenly struck by a singular thought._

_ She shrugged. "I mean, I never thought 'if I had a million dollars I would do this.' I just never thought about it. But … it's an amazing thing, Josh. It's going to help a lot of people, and I think my mother would really want that." _

_ "It's just a lot," Josh said, "given that he's not even a colleague."_

_ "He's not a cop but he's there every day; he's got my back," Kate insisted gently. "And you just have to know Castle — he's … very big-spirited. He's really generous. He doesn't _need_ all this money he has so he finds things to do with it." _

_"So he decides to spend, I don't know, a million dollars on this thing?" he asked._

_ "He's just starting the pot, giving it a chance," Kate insisted. She paused. "There's a benefit he's organizing to raise funds. February 25th. You should come with me." She looked apprehensive about asking him; like she was trying to convince herself of something. _

_ He shook his head. "I'll be in Haiti then," he reminded her. The trip had been planned for weeks. _

_ "Right. Of course," she'd said. She smiled. "Sorry, I forgot."_

_ Her smile was unnerving. Shouldn't she be mad, that he couldn't come to some big benefit in honor of her dead mother? "You're … OK with that?"_

_ "Your work is important to you, Josh. We agreed on this months ago." _

_ "Yeah, but … this is important to you, too." His phone buzzed then. The hospital, obviously. "Shit, Katie …"_

_ "No, go," she said, leaning up to kiss him. "We'll talk later, OK?"_

He'd thought about that conversation when he'd delayed Haiti, when he'd found them locked in that icebox. They'd fought about it a little; her being reckless, and she insisted she knew what she was doing and that Castle was more than adequate backup. He didn't get it; had yelled about her about her trust in someone that wasn't a cop. The argument had reached a stalemate eventually: He didn't quite know what to think. She kept insisting it was actually something he could not tell him, why she was in that freezer with Castle, and he was inclined to believe her. He knew she wouldn't cheat, he trusted her not to lie, and there were questions that, despite the fact they'd been dating for the better part of the year, he didn't think he could ask. Because she'd told him, so long ago, that there was nothing to ask about. He flew out to Malawi for three weeks and came back buoyant and inspired, and then Kate and Castle had burst through the ambulance bay, literally the next day. He hadn't even seen Kate the night before; she hadn't answered texts or phone calls at all and he figured she was caught up in work.

The surgery wasn't serious; at least, not as serious as it could be. He knew going into it that the only way the man could die was human error, and Josh didn't make those. It only took four hours; then he was rounding into the waiting room where he knew he'd find Kate.

Ryan and Esposito were there, of course: Ryan looked pretty raw and was sitting next to his fiancé (Jenny? Janie?); Esposito alternated between leaning against the wall and pacing aggressively. Lanie, seated next to Kate, just looked worried. He liked Lanie a lot. Kate, still dressed in her blood-soaked dress blues, gripped the hand of a teenager with light-red hair. On the other side, the girl leaned into the arms of an older, worried woman, who was sitting next to a thin, older man. Castle's parents, probably. The older man looked a little bit out-of-place, a little awkward in the situation.

"Josh, hey," Kate said, rising to meet him and pulling the shaken teenager, dressed all in black (what?) with her. "This is Castle's daughter, Alexis, and his mother, Martha." The rest of the precinct rose with them. "You know the rest of the precinct and Jenny, of course. My father, Jim Beckett." Josh's eyebrows rose. What the hell was going on, exactly? And this was _not_ meet-the-father time. He didn't even know if he and Kate were at the meet-the-father point. Hell, she'd said she wasn't particularly close to her father. Looking at him, she quickly added, "Dad, Martha, Alexis, my boyfriend and Castle's surgeon, Josh Davidson. He's the best surgeon he could have had, promise." She hesitated a half-beat before boyfriend, and he mentally rolled his eyes.

"How is he, doc?" Esposito asked, folding his arms across his chest.

"He'll be fine," Josh said, the questions that were swirling in his mind slipping behind a professional façade. "All things considered, it wasn't a terrible injury. The bullet entered his side, just under his rib cage, cracked a few ribs and grazed a lung. We were able to repair everything; he'll be able to make a full recovery."

"Oh, thank god," Alexis, the daughter replied, tears leaking at the corner of her eyes. She kind of sank sideways into Kate, who squeezed the girl's shoulders. "When can we see him?"

"He'll be in recovery for another few hours," Josh said. "I'd take this time, go home, shower, maybe pick him up a few things," he focused solely to the girl. "Come back in maybe two hours and you'll be able to see him." The girl nodded her head shakily.

"Well, good," Martha said, taking a deep breath and clearly trying to calm her body. "Yes, that sounds like a plan. Come on, Alexis."

"Alright, go home, take a shower, Alexis, you hear me? I'll come by in two hours to pick you up and bring you back in." Kate said, gripping the girl's shoulders. "Martha, take care of yourself too, okay?"

"Same to you, Beckett," Martha said, hugging her tightly. "You get home before you come back for us, alright?"

"Of course, Martha," Kate straightened a little under the older woman's gaze.

"Alright, darling. You hear? He'll be fine," Martha put her arm around the girl, who honestly still was in shock, Josh could tell. She paused. "He'll probably be insufferable over this. Boys do love cool scars, Alexis …"

As soon as they were out of earshot, Kate's eyes slid to Esposito. "There's a detail on their place, right?"

"Been waiting outside the hospital for an hour," Esposito confirmed.

"Make sure they don't know — Alexis is already freaked out," Kate insisted.

"They're cops, Beckett, they know how to do this," Esposito said. "You need to get home and changed too, by the way. You're still —" he motioned at her arms, caked in dried blood.

"I know, I know. I'll take a cab," Kate replied. "You guys head home, though. We need to meet in a few hours to figure out where to start. We need to get to the bottom of this case, immediately."

"No way, Beckett," Ryan piped up. "We meet in a few hours to tell you to stay the hell away from this now. Forget it, it's too dangerous."

Kate worked her jaw and looked like she was about to start arguing, but her dad put a hand on her arm. "Not now, Katie," and she just rolled her eyes and nodded — "Fine, then."

The boys hugged her then, Lanie and Jenny, too. Neither of the cops looked like they believed Beckett's "Fine, then," for a minute, and Lanie and Jenny reminded her to go home and change before the four of them finally left.

Then, finally, her father nodded at Josh. "Nice to meet you," he said, scrutinizing him. Kate shifted on her feet.

"Likewise," Josh finally said.

Having had enough of the conversation, Mr. Beckett turned to Kate. "He'll be fine, Katie, and you need to listen to everyone and go home and change."

"Yes, Dad," she said, rolling her eyes a little. "Promise."

"And Kate?" he said. "Let this one go. Please. For me."

"Okay, Dad," she said.

Looking at Josh quickly, Mr. Beckett said, "I mean it, Kate. Don't —"

"I get it, Dad, ok?"

"I can't …"

"Alright."

Mr. Beckett still didn't look like he trusted her, but he hugged her gingerly and said, "He's a good man, Katie, he'll be fine. Tell him I'll be down to visit in a few days. And stay with Lanie or Alexis and Martha tonight, okay?"

"Yes Dad," she said, dutifully.

They were alone.

"So … how was Malawi?" she asked, finally.

"Bullshit, Kate," he said. She flinched. "What the hell is going on?"

"Josh —" she started. She seemed to wait for his interruption, but he just stared at her. "Castle got shot today, okay? It's been a long day. Please."  
>"Yeah, at a funeral. How does someone who's not a cop get shot at a funeral? Hell, how does <em>anyone<em> get shot at a funeral? Whose funeral were you at? What happened, did you guys … get in a shootout with the Mafia, or something?"

"It was … It was our boss's funeral, Josh. Captain Montgomery, you met him once. He was on this case we've been working on that got deep," she said steadily. "A sniper showed up at his funeral."

"A _sniper_, Kate? What the hell kind of case was this?"

"Josh, it's complicated."

"Like hell it is."

"No, like it _actually_ is, okay?" She uncrossed her arms. "I … I need to go, I need to get cleaned up, we'll talk later."

"No, we'll talk now. What is this case, Kate, and why are you acting like you're still _on_ it when it's killed your boss and everyone who seems to know _anything_ about it — which doesn't include me, _by the way_ — is telling you to back off?"

"You haven't been here, Josh! Of course you don't know. I don't expect you to. It's an old case, we reopened it, and it's just bigger than we thought. I'll give you a call later, okay?"

"Stop it," he insisted angrily. "I'm sorry, explain this. No, really. Three people just told you to back off, they've killed your boss and shot … someone … at his _funeral_, and you're still going after this old case?"

She gritted her teeth, a slightly manic, determined look (one that he had never seen before) crossing her eyes. "This old case? Is my mother's _murder_. Whoever killed her, killed my boss, my friend, too, because he knew too much, about only-god-knows-what. And today? They shot _Castle_. And you know what, Josh? They were trying to kill me. That bullet, the one you just dug out of my best friend? Was meant. For me. Castle was trying to save my life. Which he did. So yes. I am going to find whoever did this. Of course I am. I'll talk to you later." She spun on her heel and fled.

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><p>So what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Don't get it (no seriously: Have I explained the concept correctly?) The first chapter of "Only" should be posted in a few days!<p> 


	2. Only, Chapter 1

Hey all, thanks for the great feedback on the first portion! Here is the second chapter, OR, the first chapter of the parallel story. This happens exactly as it did in actual canon. This chapter actually took me much longer than anticipated, and I'm not sure Castle is in character. All the great post-finale fics have seriously intimidated me (they're WONDERFUL) and I just hope my entry is worthy of being in their company.

Also, sorry about the crappy formatting. Anyone know how to fix?

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><p><em><strong>Only<strong>_

_**Chapter One**_

The paramedics were not making any sense. They were talking, and saying words, and moving their mouths and perpetuating speech and sounds and none of it made one lick of sense. Jargon and acronyms spun around and above him, but it was like reading a version of Dr. Seuss that had been translated into Russian, then Japanese, then back to English. Halfway through the ride to the hospital, he realized he was yelling back at them. Pleadingly.

He'd grabbed Kate's phone, almost blindly, and found Josh's number (fifth-most-dialed, not that he was counting), hoping, for the first time, that Wonderboy Surgeon was _not_ off gallivanting in Timbuktu. He'd originally thought it was weird — and then a hopeful sign — that Josh was not at the funeral.

"Hey, babe." Nope. The voice was light, friendly; did he even know what kind of hell his girlfriend was going through? Probably not. _Hopefully not_.

"Josh? It's Rick. Rick Castle. I'm with Kate," he said, trying to steady his voice and still listen to the paramedics spout … things. Really, he should know more of what the hell was going on. "She's been shot. I need you to meet me at the hospital. We're in the ambulance."

"Shot?" Josh said, harsh, alarmed. "What the hell? Why wasn't she wearing a vest?"

"She wasn't in the field; she was giving a eulogy," Castle explained sharply. "She's been shot in the … lung. Ribs. Near the heart. I don't know. Meet us at the hospital."

"A _eulogy_? The _hell_?" the surgeon swore, but Castle had already hung up. He'd bullied his way onto the ambulance and they were basically at the hospital.

An ER doc was waiting for them when they got there, and the EMTs rattled off more jargon as Castle was rendered moot. She was so pale, unmoving. There had been blood, so much blood, _everywhere_.

Suddenly Lanie materialized behind him. He'd forgotten that she'd been there; that she'd been in the ambulance; that she was fluent in doctor. They wheeled Kate into an ED bay and started adding oxygen masks, IV drips, anything. They were "stabilizing her," Lanie explained breathlessly, as she started questioning a nurse again.

"What's going _on_? No, tell me, what's going _on_?" Castle finally demanded, his voice betraying how short his fuse currently was.

"Get the boyfriend out of here," one of the doctors shouted after one quick glance at him.

"Partner — I'm her partner," Castle protested, stumbling over the words as one of the youngest nurses he'd ever seen (not in a hot way, just in a young way), guided him out.

"You need to give them space to work. You don't want to see her like this," she said, "trust me."  
>"What's <em>happening<em>?" he demanded, his head finally clearing.

"Dad!" Alexis shouted, dashing across the ED for him, feet flapping on the linoleum, Martha and Jim Beckett right behind him. "Dad, are you ok?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he insisted, then turned back to the nurse. "What's happening?"

"She'll need surgery to repair the damage; they're stabilizing her and then taking her up to the OR," the nurse explained. "I don't know any more, I'm sorry. The waiting room is that way —"

"Ryan and Esposito are already there," Alexis interrupted.

"What's going on?" Jim Beckett insisted, his face shocked and wan. "What is going on with my daughter?" Castle realized that he'd basically pushed the older man out of the way to climb into the ambulance, and felt a little guilty about it. Not that guilty, though.

"Your daughter was hit in the lower chest cavity. The bullet hit her spleen, liver and a lung. It looks like it shattered some ribs but missed the heart; we need to do an MRI to determine that. She'll need surgery. It'll have to start as soon as possible, and it's going to take a while. She'll be in a lot of pain when she wakes up." The only thing he could focus was her phrasing: _when_ she wakes up. Thank god.

From there everything was a blur. He couldn't see her, touch her, anymore. There was no reassurance that she was alive; only faith. He didn't see Josh, though one of the nurses told Jim that Josh — "her boyfriend," which made Jim jerk his head — is operating on her, and that he was the best of the best. Of course he was. Kate only deserved (and got) the best. There was paperwork, lots of it, that they initially handed to Jim but who, after struggling to answer three questions about recent medical history ("Does Katie smoke? She smoked in high school and college but I haven't seen a cigarette in years") he quickly passed it off to Castle. Only, Castle's handwriting was so shaky that he passed it off to Alexis, who asked him the questions in a calm, quiet voice as he dictated the answers distractedly.

"Her last physical was in January, she was fine, they told her to stop drinking so much coffee," he muttered. Around him, the boys and Jenny and Lanie paced agitatedly, Lanie and Jenny asking medical questions (Jenny was a Med-Surge nurse at Mount Sinai) and the boys harassing other cops over the phone. The waiting room had kind of become a Beckett Command Center. Ashley showed up, weirdly, and sat beside Alexis, not saying much. Mother and Jim Beckett seemed to hit it off and frequently went for rounds of coffee. Other cops he recognized from in and around the precinct passed in and out. Lanie and Jenny eventually drooped into chairs. He didn't know where the Montgomery family had gone. There was a static tense silence that filled the air and his brain and his lungs, and he focused wholly on not thinking about what would happen — if, what if, all of it. His mother and daughter took turns sitting by him, running their palms along his forearms, trying to assuage his feelings. Alexis, who had cried at the site, started to cry again, very briefly, and for the first time in his life he couldn't summon the words to comfort his baby girl.

An hour after they got there, a nurse came by to announce that surgery had started and was expected to take between seven and eight hours. "There's a lot of damage to repair," she explained to Mr. Beckett and Castle. "They're trying to do the repair laparoscopically; it'll give her a much faster recovery time and quality of life afterwards." The bullet had taken a slight upward trajectory: spleen, liver, ribs, lung, all hit, pericardium grazed, heart just missed. The nurse had tried to talk solely to Mr. Beckett but he'd quickly interjected that Castle had Beckett's medical power of attorney, which, thank god, he actually did. She'd switched it in November after he'd made her his, as well as Alexis' legal guardian. Just in case. Now, apparently, was the case. The nurse handed him a beeper, which could go off anywhere in the hospital whenever they had updates, giving him the ability to roam around.

He stayed put anyways.

The waiting should have been enough to drive him mad, but there was something strangely routine about the whole life-hanging-in-the-balance moment. Some things did not change. There were still conversations. He was still thinking. His mind and body, while tense and nervous, were still functioning. He was begging, pleading, internally, but almost bracing himself mentally by shutting down and focusing on the normality. Still, _pleasepleaseplease_ ran through his mind almost automatically; a mental cadence with a tempo matched to the beat of his heart. He begged a higher power he barely knew, let alone knew how to spoke to. He was in the bargaining phase — _I will donate all my money to charity; I will never write again_ — when he noticed the boys approach him.

"Do you want to hear what they've found out?" Ryan asked, slightly nervously, crossing his arms in front of him.

The uniforms' canvas. Of course. "I'm guessing nothing turned up," he said. It wasn't even a question.

"Eh, not so, bro," Esposito said. "Based on what you saw, he was about a half-mile back, there was a getaway car. Traffic cameras outside the cemetery and tire treads narrowed it down to three cars; one of those cars was found about four miles away. Forensics is combing it now."

He shook his head. "Whoever hired Lockwood … and this guy … there won't be evidence," he sat down. "They'll have bleached it." Rubbing his face, he continued, "Track them down, see if there's anything, but — we got so close — too close," he didn't finish the sentence.

The boys understood. "When she wakes up, she's gonna want facts, she's gonna want us to investigate," Ryan said, "But we'll keep it out of this room, okay?"

Perfect. "Okay," he exhaled, relieved. He went back to pacing. Worried. Pleading. Desperately. A sick feeling of nausea waxed and waned, before eventually dissipating into a jittery, tense discomfort: Limbo.

Sometime later — he was not sure if it was minutes or hours or days — Jim slid next to him. He exhaled. "So, this boyfriend?"

"His name is Josh. He's a surgeon, they've been dating … I don't know. I was gone last summer; sometime then I guess. He … rides a motorcycle, goes on medical missions to third-world countries, runs triathlons." _Rescues lost puppies_, he added mentally. _Paints rainbow murals for cancer kids. _

"A year, huh?" Mr. Beckett said slowly. "I've … never heard Katie mention him." He sounded sad, but unsurprised.

He shrugged. "You know Kate better than anyone. She keeps things close."

"I actually don't think I know my daughter best," Mr. Beckett said, his voice light and completely free of acrimony. "She mentions you about once a week, though." Castle put his head back. He did not have time for this. "Sorry. Your mother — she's been filling me in."

"I'm scared to ask," Castle said, natural wit temporarily surfacing among worry.

"No need to worry," Mr. Beckett reassured. "Just — she mentions you. And I thought you should know."

"Thank you," Castle said automatically.

"I should be thanking you."

"Why?"

"You talked to her — kept her safe."

"She got shot. That's basically the opposite of safe in my book."

"She didn't go purposely running into a firefight just to get killed," Mr. Beckett corrected. "That — I think you're the only person who could have done that. So, thank you."

Castle looked at the man, hard. "I should have done more," he finally said, and meant it. He wasn't looking for pity, or compassion, or to make a good impression. It was simply fact. He should have caught that bullet. Jim Beckett seemed to understand; at the very least, he nodded. There was a sort of symmetry in their situation; nearly losing Kate, he realized, would bind him to Jim Beckett, who had lost Johanna for the very same reasons, for forever. Not to put too fine a point on it.

The hours stretched on, infinity unfurling itself. The boys ordered pizza; Alexis and Ashley started making the coffee runs instead, as Martha began to complain about her legs. Lanie sat by him and went over what the doctors had to be doing to her. The nurse came by and squealed about Josh's surgery being the ultimate romantic gesture. Eventually, Esposito flopped down beside him.

"When I was in the Gulf," he began, "One of my friends, a guy in my platoon, was shot by a bullet, stray one, in this house outside Baghdad. Nicked him, just enough, in the neck."

"What's your point, Esposito?" he said, not mean, just tired.

"He started bleeding out immediately. I was the guy who held his neck, and I was the guy they had to pull off 20 minutes later when they knew he wouldn't make it. Point is, what you did, in the moment, whatever you did, it was the right thing. Whatever happens — it's not your fault."

He stopped. "I told her that I loved her."

Esposito's solemn, stoic countenance cracked, a grin managing to break through and disrupt the lines on his face. "Finally. Took you long enough."

"So says the guy who thought he had a secret relationship for over a month," Castle retorted wryly. "Anyways. No idea if she heard me."

"You know, she's tight, but she's not dense," Esposito replied. "She broke up with Demming for you, you know."

His head lifted sharply. "What?"

"Last summer, right before you left? She broke up with Demming."

"She never told me."

"Lanie says she was going to — then she found out Gina was going with you."

He pondered. That made sense, made a lot of the year make sense.

"And, remember your first case back? The bet you guys had, about the case with the counterfeiters? Beckett figured it out about a half hour before you did, at least. She threw it," Esposito continued. "My point — don't give up on her, OK? Doesn't seem like it, but she doesn't give up on you." He walked off.

Eventually he needed to go stretch his legs, leave Limbo land, walk around. He stopped at the nursery and stared at babies, tried not to let his imagination get too far ahead of himself. He passed a door that said 'morgue.' He wandered around quiet floors and noisy ones, past waiting rooms filled with screaming kids and efficient nurses. He stared out the windows and realized how late it had gotten. It was nearly ten. The surgery was on hour six.

As he was wandering back from his leg-stretch, he noticed Alexis curled into a chair, tears dampening her face. She was wearing a lumpy cardigan and huddled in the ugly fluorescent lights, which gave the entire scene with a sort of horror-movie tinge that had been steadily building throughout the night.

"Alexis," he said, sitting down next to her. "Why are you out here?"

"Sorry," she said, unfolding her body and shaking her shoulders. "I just needed a minute." She sniffed.

"Heyyyy, pumpkin," he said, pulling her into his side and feeling suddenly, horrifically guilty that his daughter had watched a woman she considered a mentor shot, and hadn't even given it a second thought. He was a shitty father. "It's okay, it's okay. Today's been rough."

"That's an understatement," Alexis tried to chuckle but the sound clogged in her throat. "I don't think I've ever been more scared. Dad, _you_ could have been shot. I mean, Beckett's amazing and I'm so scared that she got shot, but Dad — that could have been you. You could be on that table, or, or, dead. And I know you've done stuff you don't want to worry me about when you're with Beckett, but Dad … you could have been shot." And suddenly her body wracked with muffled tears. "I'm sorry. I'm a terrible person for thinking that way …"

"No, no, I am," he interjected quickly. "You're not terrible at all, Alexis, I'm so sorry."

"It's just … Kate … and I could have lost you. That's all," she said, crying some more.

He kissed her forehead. "I'm still here. And like it or not, I intend on keeping it that way."

She smiled, a watery smile, and he could see something still broken in her eyes. He decided not to push it.

"You know, you should go home soon. It's almost midnight." He worried about his daughter, his smart and trusty and resourceful daughter. It was the only thing he had left to give her, his worry.

She snorted. "Please. If I go home, it's just to bring you back pajamas."

"I got the good kid, you know that, right?" he smiled.

"You're calling me out of school tomorrow."

"Something I never thought you'd ask," he cracked automatically, but then the gravity of the situation hit them both again and they sobered.

He spent the final hour of her surgery obsessively researching trauma surgery, a way to distance his mind without losing it. He knew plenty about surgery already, about bullet wounds, about how to injure and kill, but rereading how they were basically taking Kate's body apart, only to put it together again, Humpty-Dumpty style, was just as terrifying as the blood still caked under his fingernails.

He dozed off unintentionally, his laptop sliding off his lap until his mother dove and saved it. When he was shaken awake, by Mr. Beckett, he saw Josh, the surgical Adonis, standing there in sea-green scrubs, his eyes tired and surgical mask dangling from his neck.

"She's out. It'll be a long road back but she's stable now. She's in recovery," he said, his voice heavy. "She'll be moved to intensive care around 3 a.m."

"When can we see her?" Lanie, thank god, asked the question first.

"In the morning. Everyone needs to go home, get some sleep, and take a shower," Josh instructed. Castle knew that he would not be doing that. He would not be leaving.

But he didn't need to worry, because the next words out of Josh's mouth were, "Rick — can I talk to you?"


End file.
